


Desolation, Texas

by MajorTrouble



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Western, Eventual Romance, Eventual Smut, Exchangelock AU Exchange 2014, M/M, Sherlock-centric, Slow Burn, What-If
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-09-30
Updated: 2014-11-06
Packaged: 2018-02-19 07:51:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,638
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2380580
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MajorTrouble/pseuds/MajorTrouble
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock Holmes has found his way to the New World, this time in the American Frontier. He finds himself in the town of Desolation, solving crimes, helping his brother (when he feels like it), and generally being bored. That is, until the town gets a new doctor, one who has secrets of his own to keep.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Part of the game

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bastarditis](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=bastarditis).



> Hello! Here is my entry for the Exchangelock "What if?" prompt. I had a lot of fun learning about the American Frontier for this one. Will update Sunday nights :)

“State your full name for the record,” intoned the sheriff, holding out the bible for the defendant to place his hand on.

“I don’t believe in the fairy tales represented in that book,” the man sniffed disdainfully. “As you well know, Sheriff Daniels, I am of the opinion that science is the true candle by which we can see the path leading forward from this dull existence -”

“Your honour, he’s doing it again,” sighed Daniels. 

“If you will place your hand on the bible and tell us your name, please,” the judge gestured with one hand.

“And if I refuse?” the defendant asked, nose high in the air, managing despite the mud-stains on his suit to appear regal and stoic in the face of this adversity.

“Then I will have the bailiff put you back in your cell where you will await transport back to merry old England, never to set foot in these United States again,” the judge stated, his expression stern, but somehow hinting that he might just do that anyway. 

The man huffed out a breath before gingerly placing his hand on the old leather bound book. “I would like it noted that I am doing this under duress.”

“Fine,” the judge waved one hand. “Get on with it.”

“State your name for the record,” the sheriff repeated, adding, “Please,” at the look of disapproval from the taller man.

“William Sherlock Scott Holmes,” he said. 

“Thank-you. Please be seated.” 

Sherlock frowned again before carefully seating himself on the hard-backed wooden chair in the witness box beside the judge’s stand. He crossed one long leg over the other at the knee and clasped his hands tightly together in his lap. The dark blue suit he wore was coated in a fine layer of dust and sported several patches of dried mud. It was rumpled, like he’d been sleeping in it - which he had - but the material was of such high quality that it hardly mattered in the grand scheme of things: he still looked every bit the wealthy aristocrat he was. Dark curls crowned a patrician face displaying impossibly sharp cheekbones and a frankly ridiculous cupid’s bow of a mouth that was currently drawn tightly up in a moue of distaste. He hadn’t meant to be here. Not like this. It was rather disconcerting to be accused of a crime when one’s entire life’s work was bent on solving them.

He turned his gaze outward, using his observational skills to assess and catalogue. The courtroom was small, like most out here in the American Frontier, and held nearly half the population of the town. Back behind the two desks - made of rough timber hastily nailed at the four corners to equally rough posts - sat four rows of pews. These were of a higher craftsmanship, having been procured from the local church. In the front row, behind the prosecutor, sat the Heathrow brothers. Five mid-height, brawny Irishman all with the same shock of red hair. They all wore varying degrees of the same scowl and all were directed at the witness box - at him. 

Which he supposed was entirely reasonable given that he’d broken into the farmhouse they lived in, stolen several pieces of cutlery and an old music box, and accused them of the murder of their father. 

All-in-all, it had seemed a good idea at the time. Now that he was facing them across a court of law, however, he was beginning to rethink his rash decision. Perhaps he should have been more forceful in his observations to Sheriff Daniels. Or waited for the coroner’s results. Or waited until the Marshall had shown up. Or even just slept on it one night: the Heathrow brothers weren’t going anywhere, really.

He filed away all these little ideas in a box at the top of the attic of his brain labelled “Might be something to consider at a later date provided you aren’t hanged in the morning” and continued his long look around the courtroom.

Several of the regular town’s folk filled the rest of the pews. Clarence Mckinney, who owned the local tavern - gambling problem, recent widower, no children - was seated beside the chemist, Andrew Neat - nearsighted, brilliant, alcoholic, dog - and the new doctor, John Watson - soldier, competent surgeon, but with surprisingly blank eyes, walked with a psychosomatic limp. Mckinney was fidgeting with a pocket watch, wrapping the chain around his index finger and releasing it, over and over again in a nervous motion. The man was in his mid-thirties, and dressed in what Sherlock assumed was his Sunday best, given the stark creases and relative cleanliness. Neat, on the other hand, sat absolutely still. His dark hair was rumpled from having been under the wide-brimmed hat he now held in his hands, and weathered skin of his face was drawn into a look of deep concentration. 

Dr. Watson, with his sandy blond hair shot through with grey, the comfortably-worn suit and rigid way he sat, reminded Sherlock of a boy he’d once observed in school back in England. He’d been full of secrets, full of dark corners never lit by passing light, and had held himself with such control that it had driven Sherlock into his first real investigation, seeking out whatever this boy knew, whatever he was keeping from everyone around him. The thirst for knowledge that had gripped Sherlock for those passing months had nearly gotten him thrown out of Oxford. But Victor Trevor had divulged every one of those secrets, and Sherlock, in return, had helped him escape his life.

He’d have to keep an eye on that one.

“Mr Holmes, can you tells us where you were night before last?” Robert Ount, the spider-like prosecutor asked as he stepped around from behind his makeshift desk. All long limbs and sparse hair, the man was dressed in what amounted to funerary garb. Sunken eyes like black pits dominated his gaunt face and made the pouches of his cheeks look like curdled milk. Sherlock had always disliked him. 

“That’s rather a broad question,” Sherlock answered, steepling his fingers under his chin and gazing across their tips at Ount. 

The man’s lips were as thin as paper as they pressed together. “Allow me to clarify for you. You were found, night before last, stealing documents from the study of the recently deceased Hugo Heathrow, by his sons. What say you?”

Sherlock carefully considered his next words. It was true, he had been in Heathrow’s study, going through a secret compartment he’d discovered in the dead man’s desk. He’d picked the lock on the side cupboard and determined that there was a false back behind the haphazardly stacked ledger books. Heathrow had owned the two mines that kept the town employed as well as the general store and half the tavern. He kept meticulous notes on all of them, seeing as Mr Mckinney had been gambling away money at such an alarming rate. Heathrow had confronted him about the debts he was incurring, concerned that he wouldn’t be able to make the payments. According to two patrons of the tavern, Mckinney was reduced to tears by the bigger man before the two had retreated to a back room. What had gone on there was anyone’s guess, but Sherlock was sure that it had involved promises to pay and clean up his act from Mckinney and a rather stern lecture from Heathrow. 

What he’d found in the back of the cupboard, however, indicated that the brothers had an entirely different idea of how to run a business. 

“There’s no question of where I was that night,” Sherlock flicked one hand out at the prosecutor nonchalantly. “The real question should be what was I doing there.” He waited a beat before flicking out his hand again. “Go on.”

Ount stared at him a moment more before drawling, “All right, Mr Holmes, I’ll play your game. What were you doing in the Heathrow house?” He wrapped his long, rail-thin arms across his chest and scowled down his aquiline nose at the other man.

“I was looking for the other ledgers,” Sherlock hedged, struggling to keep his expression neutral. No need to give away the whole game at once. 

“What other ledgers?” Ount asked, right on cue.

“There were the official ledgers, of course, kept by Mr Heathrow of his accounts. Meticulous, precise, boring. But the other ledgers,” here the British gentleman leaned forward, eyes fixed on the youngest of the Heathrow brood. “It contained all the dealings between Samual and Mr Mckinney.”

“What dealings?” Ount asked, again right on cue.

“The ledgers show transactions between the two for shipments of alcohol coming up from south of the border, as well as cocoa leaves and opium. It is my assertion that Hugo found out and Samual murdered him for it.” He waited through the shocked gasps from the old spinsters in the back of the room and had just opened his mouth to continue when Samual himself launched himself over the dividing fence, heading straight for him.

“You fucking liar! How dare you accuse me!” Samual was practically foaming at the mouth as he threw himself towards Sherlock. The taller man scrambled backwards, tipping over the chair in his haste to get away from Samual. 

He needn’t have worried. Where everyone else in the room, including Sheriff Daniels, had frozen in shock, Dr John Watson had come to life, levering himself over the fence and taking out grabbing Samual’s upraised arm. When the other man swivelled his torso around to swing his fist at the interfering party, Watson neatly turned with him, pinning his arm behind his back and kicking out at his knees, forcing the Irishman to the ground. 

“Now, now,” the doctor said, putting pressure on Samual’s pinned arm and causing him to gasp in pain. “I think it’s extraordinarily rude to interrupt people. Especially when they’re under oath.” He glanced up, catching Sherlock’s eye and winking cheekily. 

It was at this point that Sheriff Daniels finally moved forward. relieving Watson of his burden. “Thank-you, doctor, I can handle him from here.” The Sheriff levered the man to his feet. By this time, the rest of the Heathrow brothers were on their feet, yelling and gesticulating wildly whilst the rest of the sheriff’s men stood between them and the front of the courtroom. The judge was uselessly banging his hand on the table, trying to restore order, and Sherlock was actively gaping at the doctor. He had deduced soldier, but not fighter. Interesting.

Watson took the opportunity of the confusion to stand beside Sherlock, reaching down to right his chair. “Never seen anything like this before,” he said cheerfully, waving at the mayhem that had enveloped the courtroom. “This happen often?”

“Not as such, no,” Sherlock answered, finally getting his mouth and tongue back under his brain’s control. “You’ve fought in the Indian Wars. But sustained an injury that got you relieved of your duties.”

Watson’s eyes widened fractionally. “Well, yes. How did you know that?”

“You’re an army-trained doctor. But also an army-trained fighter. That wasn’t a move any tavern-brawler would know. You hold yourself stiffly, and you have a limp but it’s psychosomatic: you kicked him with your right leg, the one you favour, and you don’t seem to be in any pain now. But there must be a lasting injury, or you’d still be out there fighting,” Sherlock rattled off, then held his breath. He hadn’t really meant to say it all at once like that; it always ended badly. He waited for the anger, for the punch, that usually followed his deductions.

Instead, Watson looked at him with what amounted to surprise and awe. “That was amazing,” he breathed.

“You really think so?”

Watson nodded before glancing around the courtroom, which was devolving into an actual brawl around them. “However, I think it might be best if we excused ourselves from here.”

“Hmmm,” Sherlock answered, looking around the room quickly, locating Daniels against the far wall. They made eye contact and the Sheriff nodded at him, pointing his chin at the judge before flicking it to the door behind the witness box. “We should probably take his honour with us.”

The doctor grinned again before following the taller man up to where the judge was still banging his hand uselessly on the desk. “If it pleases the court, we need to get you out of here,” Watson yelled over the noise, grabbing hold of the man’s flailing arm.

Sherlock’s jaw clicked shut on whatever he was going to say and lead the way through the door and out into the mid-day sun.


	2. Just in Time

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Holy balls it's been a stressful October! I apologize for the lateness and shortness of this update, but hope that you enjoy it anyway. Your comments and kudos give me life so thank-you!

 

They ushered the judge back to his office behind the courthouse, waiting until the Sheriff and two of his deputies returned. Sheriff Daniels was now sporting a rather puffy eye and bruised knuckles, which Doctor Watson insisted on seeing to. Sherlock huffed out an annoyed sound that both men ignored.

He’d wanted to take this opportunity to assess the doctor further. There were secrets there, he could see them in the line of tension across the other other man’s shoulders. He could just make out their traces in the false cheer he used to describe Daniels’ injuries. Sherlock began to feel that overwhelming urge to know fizzling through his brain. He had to grit his teeth to keep the words he wanted to say behind them. There would be time enough later.

Instead, he stalked over to where the judge was seated, looking a bit shocked at the whole thing. Rupert Tenth had been the sitting judge in Desolation for nearly ten years. Before that, he’d been in New York and had handled the biggest case in the past century: a gang of United Empire Loyalists who had been inciting riots and robbing coaches. Judge Tenth had sentenced the five men and two women to be hanged, despite the fact that one of them was his nephew. Afterwards, he had sought out a new position, away from the city, and wandered all the way out to the small town on the edge of the Frontier. Undoubtedly, he had expected no one to know him there. No one but a pretentious British aristocrat with a penchant for sticking his sharply-pointed cheekbones in whichever direction was most enticing. Sherlock had figured the man out in about fifteen minutes - plus five hours of meticulous research - his curiosity piqued by a man with such a spotless reputation who would abandon his old life of wealth and prestige to rough it in the wilderness.

The man Judge Tenth had sentenced to hang had not been his nephew, but his natural-born son. The boy had been born out of wedlock, with the sister of his deceased wife, and Tenth had had the unenviable task of seeing his only son hanged. So he had left New York, seeking out solitude and penance, and found himself in Desolation, an aptly-named town in the state of Texas. Tenth had been heartbroken and angry when Sherlock had deduced him, but mollified quickly over the next few months as the gangly Brit had helped solve a serial murder case that had spanned half the country.

“Judge Tenth, I must insist that you hear the rest of my testimony. I will write it all down for you, but Samual wasn’t alone in his dealings. The Heathrow brothers are all in this together,” Sherlock stated, sprawling haphazardly in the chair on the other side of the judge’s desk.

Tenth glanced up at him, eyes suddenly bright and calculating. “Can you prove it?” he asked simply.

Sherlock nodded. “With those ledgers. And a witness.”

Tenth’s eyebrows shot into his hairline. “Who?”

“The sister. They think she is dumb and mute, but she’s been playing them one off the other at her father’s insistence. Hugo knew there was something going on, and Liza has always been window dressing in that household, especially after her mother died. It was easy for her to slip in and listen to their conversations; the music box contains all of her notes.” Sherlock felt a smug sense of satisfaction at having figured out this piece of the puzzle. Liza had been terrified when her father had died, and it had taken an immense amount of coaxing to get the young girl to trust him. She’d told him about the music box, as well as the ledgers, and promised she’d stand witness against her brothers.

For his part, he’d arranged to have her sent to her Aunt’s house far to the South, away from the cruelness of her brothers and the town. Sherlock’s older brother would be taking her there, repayment for a favour he’d incurred when the younger man had revealed that his secretary was selling secrets to the highest bidder.

Tenth nodded, considering. “This is good news.” He frowned over at where the Sheriff was getting the cuts on his face treated with iodine. “You have all of the brothers in custody now?”

Daniels nodded, wincing as the movement pulled at Doctor Watson’s hands, scraping the cloth across his cheek. “Yes sir. We can have all of this wrapped up by tomorrow, send it over to the State judge to deal with.”

“Hmm, yes,” Tenth rubbed a hand over his chin. “I don’t want anything else to do with this. Bad enough I had to listen to the preliminary evidence. Ount could have that thrown out in front of the State judge if Samual and his brothers figure out how I wrote the warrant after the fact.” He grinned at Sherlock’s raised eyebrow. “Well, can’t let you have all the fun.”

The younger man smiled wryly. “Oh Judge Tenth. You are certainly full of surprises. One would think you enjoyed making me sweat on the stand.”

That earned him a hearty laugh from the judge. “You have no idea. But!” he held up a hand to forestall Sherlock’s inevitable conclusion that yes, he really did have every idea. “That is neither here nor there.” He crossed his arms over his chest, slouching back in his chair and levelling his gaze at the presumptuous Holmes. “Liza needs to be on the stand tomorrow morning. The Marshall will be here to collect all the evidence and the brothers and ship the whole lot over to Frank’s jurisdiction which I will be immensely grateful for. Where is Liza now?”

“Safe,” intoned Sherlock, not meeting the judge’s eyes. “The less people who know of her whereabouts the better.” When Tenth’s frown deepened he rolled his eyes. “I’ve got Tom looking after her, she’ll be perfectly fine until tomorrow.”

Watson, silent throughout the conversation, finally straightened, wiping his hands on a cloth. “Nothing permanently damaged,” he said. “Just try not to get in the way of any other flailing fists for a few days.”

The Sheriff grinned. “No promises, doctor. I tend to run into all sorts of limbs these days.” He winked at the doctor and Sherlock watched in fascination as a blankness settled over the doctor’s face for a moment before being replaced by a polite, professional smile. Was it a defense mechanism? Some sort of automatic response to any flirtations, however innocent?

“Well, at least you’ll be able to see them coming. The bones around your eye aren’t damaged, but it’ll be tender for a few days,” Watson intoned, gathering his things and placing them neatly back into the black bag. He turned to address the judge, eyes skipping over Sherlock’s intense stare. “I should attend to Samual, your honor. He’s got at the very least one broken arm. The deputies were a bit rough with him.”

Tenth nodded, standing to reach across and grasp Watson’s hand, shaking it firmly. “Of course. Good to meet you in person, Doctor. I received a letter from Doctor Richardson just yesterday, asking after you.”

“Oh? I’d no idea you knew Harold,” Watson responded, outwardly calm and professional, but Sherlock could see the effort with which he held himself still. “How is the old Major?”

“Well as can be expected. He speaks highly of you, though. Says your skill at field surgery is unparalleled. Makes one wonder why you’d choose to leave that behind to come out to the edge of nowhere.”

Watson smiled tightly. “Many reasons. The least of which is that I’d seen enough blood and death for a lifetime. Decided to try the quiet country doctor life for awhile. See if it fits.”

“You and me both,” the judge said, much to Sherlock’s surprise. His smile was easier as he released Watson’s hand. “Go see to Samual and his troublesome brothers. I’m sure Daniels can survive for awhile without you.”

The doctor smiled back, a bit easier this time. “Don’t touch it,” he snapped at the sheriff, who had raised a hand to gently prod at the bruising around his eye. “I’ll be back with an ointment to bring the rest of the swelling down.” He finally met Sherlock’s gaze for a moment, his eyebrow raising almost imperceptibly, before turning and heading out the door, his bag swinging from his left hand.

Sherlock watched him go, eyes narrowing as he took in the new information. Abruptly, he swung himself up and out of the chair. “I must go check on Tom and Liza.”

“Sherlock,” Daniels started. He whirled to stare at the sheriff, who swallowed, wincing as it jerked the muscles around his jaw. “The Marshall will be in town this evening. He’ll want to speak with you. And Liza.”

The lanky man scowled. “I’ll only be a few hours. Plenty of time.” He practically heard Daniels rolling his eyes behind him as he followed the doctor out of the office.

“Just don’t piss him off again!” the sheriff called after him. He smiled sharply. But making Marshall Lestrade angry was his specialty.


End file.
